Objectives

Methods

This retrospective study was approved by the institutional review board. Participants comprised 43 patients (36 males, 7 females; mean age, 71 years) who underwent carotid MRI including T1-SPACE and CS-T1-SPACE. The quality of visualization for carotid plaques and vessel walls was evaluated using a 5-point scale, and signal intensity ratios (SRs) of the carotid plaques were measured and normalized to the adjacent sternomastoid muscle. Scores for the quality of visualization were compared between T1-SPACE and CS-T1-SPACE using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Statistical differences between SRs of plaques with T1-SPACE and CS-T1-SPACE were also evaluated using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test, and Spearman’s correlation coefficient was calculated to investigate correlations.

• Physiological movements such as swallowing, arterial pulsations, and breathing induce motion artifacts in vessel wall imaging, and a shorter acquisition time can reduce artifacts from physiological movements.

Notes

Acknowledgements

Funding information

This study has received funding by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas “Initiative for High-Dimensional Data-Driven Science through Deepening of Sparse Modeling,” Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) grant numbers 25120002 and 25120008, and supported by The Kyoto University Foundation and JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 18K07711.

Compliance with ethical standards

Guarantor

The scientific guarantor of this publication is Professor Kaori Togashi, MD, PhD.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Statistics and biometry

No complex statistical methods were necessary for this paper.

Informed consent

Written informed consent was waived by the Institutional Review Board.